Bogleheads.org

I don’t think morningstar ratings or dividends should play any role in your 401k fund selection Curious as to why dividends shouldn’t play a role in a 401k when deciding on funds? My only decent fund in my Transamerica choices is a sizable Fidelity Total Stock index. I made just under $28,000 in dividends last year from that one fund. My wife made just over $22,000 in dividends from her Vanguard SP500. That’s 50,000 reasons to take a good hard look at dividends. We’re still in the accumulation stage of life. Because $50k in dividends + $25k in capitol gains is the same as $25k in dividends + $50k in capitol gains. The total return for a dividend fund won’t be more You could go dividend funds in the 401k and growth funds in taxable if tax i...

Others are right - fundamental has a slight value tilt that originated as a way to avoid the problems with cap weighted indexes during the dot com bubble. It's more than slight really, I'd call it a value fund. HML (value loading 4 factor model) 0.44 Vanguard Small-Cap Value ETF VBR 0.44 DFA US Large Cap Value I DFLVX 0.42 Schwab Fundamental US Small Company ETF FNDA 0.31 Schwab Fundamental US Large Company ETF FNDX 0.32 Vanguard Value Index Adm VVIAX 0.27 Schwab US Large-Cap Value ETF SCHV 0.02 Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/factor-analysis?s=y&regressionType=1&regressionMethod=1&symbols=VTI+FNDX+SCHV+DFLVX+VVIAX+FNDA+VBR&sharedTimePeriod=true&factorDataSet=0&marketArea=0&fa...

Just keep a US address and no issues. Can be a friend, forwarding service, whatever. Sure, but what happens when your “friend” moves while you are overseas, and you have to scramble for a new strategy? For financial accounts, a “forwarding address” needs to be a legal domicile, cannot be a PO Box. There are services that can provide these, and there have been many posts about this issue so search away. They are pretty savy about catching mail forwarding services even if the service claims to provide a street address. If I wanted to be at a broker who didn't accept a foreign address, I'd use a friend or relatives AND a mail forwarding service. The broker would be happy with a legal street address and I'd be happy getting my mail (new debit ...

Does anyone have firsthand experience with this? If so, did Vanguard allow time for IRA's to be rolled over to another brokerage? Yes, Vanguard froze my accounts when I gave them a foreign mailing address (while keeping a US address). I panicked ... as an expat with most holding in taxable. Frozen meant that assets could be sold, cash or stocks transferred out, and dividends were reinvested. No purchases were possible. Not even money market funds. I had time to move out an IRA and taxable. I also kept a 529 plan and annuity for a few years there since I was making no new contributions. I was a new customer to Vanguard which I think influenced it. I had a chance to provide a utility bill to my US address, but a relative was living in the ho...

Thanks, I believe it is for immigration purposes. Usually, in going through immigration at the destination, they ask for my local address. Anyway, this address request was in the same section as my passport number, DOB etc. We do already have our tickets reserved on the flights we wanted, and a PNR number (or whatever they're calling it now). The dumb thing (another dumb thing) is that they ask for Postal Code along with State (gotta pick one of the fifty!!) My travel agent thought it was stupid on their part as well, but she advised me to just put in my home address. I should call them though, you're right, although they will probably try to reach into my wallet for another 25$ per passenger because their website sucks. Paying the price (...

Update: Went back to Iberia's website to reserve seats. The process is a bit confusing! Nevertheless, my Chase Visa worked fine! I called them to advise them of the upcoming charges and was connected to a rep much faster than with Citi (which has endless menus to wade through). I told her about the issues with the Citi MC, and she told me that there would be absolutely no problems using my Chase for anything airline related or abroad. I told her about MC declining charges, and she said "Never!" would that happen with my Chase Visa. THEN, on the Iberia website, I tried to enter my "missing information", including passport number, DOB, etc. All was fine until I tried to fill in "Address at Destination" which I a...

AS_25f wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 1:56 pm
I am a non-EU citizen currently employed in Germany.

Welcome!

First things first. Your plan is for a non-US person (not a US citizen or green card holder). If you are a US person (as defined by the IRS), then this plan will not work. Please confirm.

Just out of curiosity, if you want to resolve the issue, and Mastercard is declining the transactions why don't you call Mastercard? Or maybe you did and I didn't understand? In my case it was Visa and I did call. The OP reports they called too. We were told there was no indication of a declined transaction. That's what it said on the website though 'transaction declined' when making the purchase. I too was told it was the website's error and I called the airline and tried by phone - no luck. I called the bank back, had them approve the transaction before trying it, then tried again and it went through. What happens is that it gets declined in the fraud department and the regular customer service people who can see your account can't see t...

sperry8 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 4:20 am

THY4373 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 4:13 am It is very early Sunday morning in the US. This is a very common time for companies, especially financial institutions to do IT maintenance. I am sure things will work fine in a few hours.

You're probably right. Schwab should then say IT Maintenance rather than Error and not tell us to call to place this trade (since it's likely not possible to trade at all during IT maintenance).

I think you still can place a trade even if the web system is down though. Maybe they will just hold it on their desk until its back up, but I think you can.

I went to put in a trade for SWVXX just now (a sell order) and Schwab is blocking me. Saying it's some sort of "error" and I must call them to make this trade. This has never happened before. The ol "let's make it hard to get their money out" trick. I may have to pull everything out if they are playing games now. We'll see what CS says on Monday "Some functionality including account settings, BillPay, money movement and portfolio reporting is currently unavailable online and via our automated phone systems. In addition, some account information including balance, positions and transactions may be delayed or unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience." Haven't you seen that before? I've gotten it often whe...

I have had it happen multiple times on airline tickets — particularly when the flight originated outside of my country of residence.

The bank issuing the card assured me they had no record of declining anything, said they would approve the transaction and told me to try again. Sometimes that worked.

The same tickets bought on a card issued in the same country that the flights originated from always worked. (I had cards issued in multiple countries)

My Transamerica 401 keeps changing the funds offered and now it’s dreadful. I’m moving to the PCRA which limits me to Schwab funds without having to pay transaction fees. Are the Schwab fundamental index funds worth the .25% ER? They do get excellent Morningstar ratings. They basically give value exposure. If you are familiar with that you'll know it can underperform for periods but long term promises a premium. They aren't tilted as deep value as some funds, so will underperform a little less, and perhaps not outperform as much when value does well. The last decade hasn't been great for value but they haven't done poorly. Well, I'll let you be the judge: US [Sep 2013 - Feb 2023]. VTSAX (Vanguard Total Stock Mkt.) 10.25% CAGR -vs- FNDB (Sc...

:shock: 2 points. You are actually probably buying it directly from Vanguard. The process is closer to that of a used car lot. The used car dealer buys old cars, warehouses then, then resells them. They don’t so much make money on fees, but rather on mark-ups. You won’t see the mark up on the trade ticket. THAT analogy isn't going to make anyone feel better! But you can see the APY/price-to-worse and see what your return will be. You can compare what your return will be to what is offered at banks or what is offered for other brokered CDs. If a broker is making $x in mark-up, but the brokered CD is returning more than anything else offered either directly from a bank or as a brokered CD, then why do you care what $x is? Similarly, I don't ...

I've read several articles on how to purchase CDs and I want to see if I'm correct on my understanding: -When you buy a brokered CD - you are buying it from another person and not the bank. -When you buy a brokered CD - the seller is turning it over to you (like a car title) and all the interest will be coming directly from the bank after you buy it. -At Vanguard (Schwab, etc), new issues are not brokered issues (even though they are in a brokerage account). Brokered only means you bought it from a previous owner (and not the bank) I don't think those are right. New issues from a broker are brokered CDs as well. If they weren't, you'd have to hold it at the bank the way you do with a bank issued CD which can't be moved. -When you buy a pre...

Maehama Beach Yoshino Beach Sunayama Beach Miyakojima! https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e7300.html You might like a bridge tour. I forget which one, but maybe all of the three, you can see seven distinct colors of blue in the water depending on the weather. We saw five. I'm partial to blue myself, so that was a highlight for me. We just used the beach near the hotel as we tended to go in February (birthday discount!) when it's warm but not sunbathing for too long warm for us at least. It'll be hot for you! Eat seafood! Sashimi with spicy soy sauce! Thanks are you suggesting that beaches here are worth visiting and better than the ones in Okinawa? Thanks. we dont swim, we just enjoy the beaches strolling around, the peace etc Sorry, we are mis...

logiclife wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 4:39 pm Maehama Beach
Yoshino Beach
Sunayama Beach

Miyakojima!

https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e7300.html

You might like a bridge tour. I forget which one, but maybe all of the three, you can see seven distinct colors of blue in the water depending on the weather. We saw five. I'm partial to blue myself, so that was a highlight for me. We just used the beach near the hotel as we tended to go in February (birthday discount!) when it's warm but not sunbathing for too long warm for us at least. It'll be hot for you!

Eat seafood! Sashimi with spicy soy sauce!

Sure, but diversification means you have multiple single-country risks amounting to the same single country risk is what other posters are saying. Believing otherwise is just fooling themselves. Why stop at countries though? Why not only invest in companies headquartered in a single city or state? By this logic, being invested in only companies headquartered in California is surely much less risky than being exposed to companies headquartered in California and New York My answer would be that as an American, New York is never going say, and never could say, that residents of California can’t trade the stocks of companies headquartered in New York (unless they are New Yorkers). Russia did say that about those from unfriendly countries. If C...

Sure, but diversification means you have multiple single-country risks amounting to the same single country risk is what other posters are saying. Believing otherwise is just fooling themselves. Why stop at countries though? Why not only invest in companies headquartered in a single city or state? By this logic, being invested in only companies headquartered in California is surely much less risky than being exposed to companies headquartered in California and New York My answer would be that as an American, New York is never going say, and never could say, that residents of California can’t trade the stocks of companies headquartered in New York (unless they are New Yorkers). Russia did say that about those from unfriendly countries. If C...

Thanks you all for your replies so far. Any suggestions on the brokerage company here in US? Most/all seem to have 0% cost for transactions. I don't expect to trade stocks, just start (and hopefully regularly over time add to) my self styled lifestrategy fund as above. Looking at the alternatives all seem to fit the bill for my basic requirements. I have an etrade account for shares I get from work so leaning towards that but I have always been a fun of vanguard (and intend to just buy VT +BND). Their site goes into the details around execution fees (https://investor.vanguard.com/about-us/brokerage-order-execution-quality) which are frankly beyond my comprehension of the subject. Are these going to be of any significance in my basic use-ca...

SC Anteater wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 4:56 pm Most of the guidebooks don't have much to say about the middle-northern part of Honshu. We will be traveling there next month and are looking for places to go - any suggestions? Our daughter lives near Fukushima so that area and around Sendai would be closest to her place. We won't have a car so wherever we go needs to be accessible by transit.

Did you try Japan-guide?

Sendai and Matsushima that halfnine recommended are both here under Miyagi:

https://www.japan-guide.com/list/e1206.html

They also have info on getting around

https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5151.html

If we get a good travel agency we are fine as we are mostly DIY'ers but I realize life can be lot easier if we go with a tour operator. JTB is no. 1 in Japan. I never used an agency working there, but did go one one bus tour with a funny guide. Anyway, the whole hospitality thing is them looking for a way to take care of you. It’s more an emotional thing than say upgrade to a suite. I went through work training on it (had nothing to do with the hospitality industry but did interact with customers). So for a Japanese experience, I’d recommend them. But you won’t go wrong DYI and planning things yourself. https://www.jtbusa.com/TourTop.aspx Another possibility is volunteer tour. It was years ago, but my first visit I used one in Kyoto. I thi...

I diversify internationally and have for a long time, but geopolitical risk seems on the rise and I question if some of the countries in which I invest are committed to economic development. And I wonder if that is the thing explaining the luck that Felix cites. Perhaps my losses in Russian energy stocks is short cited, but China too may purse such a road. They are pretty explicitly signaling they will and then what. So in a bifurcation of the global economy, will international diversification be desirable. There is that risk and seemingly little reward for taking it. I mean what might be in the interest of an autocrat may be very different from what's in the interest of the companies in that country. So Felix did nothing to answer the que...

Lawrence of Suburbia wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 8:50 pm

typical.investor wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 6:42 pm[...] That’s what Russia taught me anyway. The companies I held are hugely profitable now. They didn’t go bankrupt but we’re just removed from my portfolio due to citizenship.

What do you mean by that?

Gazprom for instance. It's profitable but my holdings went to zero because the fund I held it in is unable to sell it due to restrictions on unfriendly state persons. I said citizenship because that would be the criteria if I held shares directly. A US domiciled fund is considered an unfriendly state person too.

This is the backlash of sanctions, and going foward I expect this to be just a new wrinkle on geo-polical risk. Russians and friendly nation people can still trade the stocks, they haven't been nationalized.

I asked Vanguard's fixed-income desk today and they thought (informally) that the beneficiaries on the Vanguard account would pass through to the brokered CD, but they didn't know for sure and of course can't give legal advice, so they suggested I check with the FDIC. Needless to say, I'd rather not wait on hold to talk to the FDIC this week. :) If you do contact the FDIC, mention their calculator. It says: Identify the ownership type of your account. If the account names beneficiaries and is not an IRA, use POD/ITF (Payable on Death/In Trust For). If the account is held in the name of a formal revocable trust (also called a family trust), use Living Trust. IRA includes all types of IRAs, such as Traditional, Roth, and SIMPLE IRAs. Followi...

lostdog wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 11:20 pm I think the U.S. only investors need to watch the PBS Front Line documentary of "easy money".

Your decade of easy money and huge returns fueled by the Federal Reserve is most likely over.

Sure, yeah. But other countries central banks have had similar policies haven’t they?

How can anyone accuse Ben Felix of not citing his sources when being evidence-based is literally the thing that separates him from other YouTubers? :confused Well said. But let me pile on: If Ben (and Cameron Passmore, his co-host on the Rational Reminder podcast) does not follow an evidence-based investing approach, then no one does. Nor is it surprising that the portfolio that his company recommends is heavy on Boglehead principles, with a meaningful tilt toward Avantis and Dimensional products. Yes I'm not sure why some focus so heavily on YouTube as a medium.... Is his YouTube channel monetized? In any case, it's good he is there. There is a lot of crappy advice hidden behind good sales technique on YouTube. Let's hope someone discover...

I suppose if there ever is an ETF with a decent ER and meaningful definition of a friendly shore, then I’d like to market weight by that. FRDM ETF? https://freedometfs.com/frdm/ The ER is higher than a straight index but of course … anyway thanks. I am looking into it…. Country inclusion and weights are determined based on third-party quantified data covering 83 personal and economic freedom variables. Variables can be categorized into three main types of freedom metrics: civil freedom (such as absence of terrorism, human trafficking, torture, disappearances and detainments), political freedom (such as rule of law, due process, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and freedom of assembly), and economic freedom ...

burritoLover wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 6:44 pm So don’t invest in EM but developed.

Yeah, good suggestion.

Or I wonder, Yellen and others have talked about friendly shoring. I suppose if there ever is an ETF with a decent ER and meaningful definition of a friendly shore, then I’d like to market weight by that.

I will have to read the paper on luck more, but is suspect that geo-political losses would get tallied in the luck category. I think rather though that gov. and legal structures may actually be what is explanatory. Some leaders readily have the power to take their country off the rails.

China represents a very small part of a globally diversified portfolio.... China is currently 8.4% of VG's Total Int'l Stock Index Fund. Investors can decide if they think 8.4% represents "a very small part of" their international equity sleeve and where that fits in their portfolio. Some who post here hold 20% int'l, some 40%, some 50%. (And some with as little as 0%.) https://i.postimg.cc/vZXXGVSk/China.gif So if we look at two investors, one that owns VT (US and exUS) and the other that owns only VTI (US only), the US only investor has more allocated to single companies (Apple, Microsoft, etc) than the global investor has allocated to an ENTIRE country comprising of many companies within China. Why are we so concerned about a ...

How can anyone accuse Ben Felix of not citing his sources when being evidence-based is literally the thing that separates him from other YouTubers? :confused It wasn’t an accusation against Ben, it was the fact that it’s more difficult to catch the name of an author and paper title spoken in YouTube than in a text document. I listened twice to make sure I had his argument down accurately and honestly didn’t catch him citing the title since the name wasn’t displayed on screen, he spoke the name quickly, and graphical icon he used (horseshoe) to represent the claim appeared after he had completed saying the paper’s name. So I stand by my claim that YouTube isn’t a great medium for info. Buy hey, if that’s how you can reach people -fine.

Without examination of that fundamental assertion, how do we know if his claim is true? Maybe he has a pdf on it someplace with footnotes of the source of his claims. This statement fairly clearly references the source for the claim: The 2022 paper Is The United States A Lucky Survivor: A Hierarchical Bayesian Approach finds that realized US equity returns have exceeded their expected returns by about 2% per year and that this observation is equally explained by luck, where US companies ended up doing better than expected due to disasters that did not materialize, and learning, where investors have deemed US stocks safer over time, driving up their valuations. It is a very interesting paper. Throughout the video there are animations on the...

+1. Very informative video. Thanks for sharing. I dislike YouTube as a medium for financial information. Swedroe for example, like him or not, cites his sources. OK, so Felix contends that US outperformance is due to luck of expected disasters not materializing and investors learning the US is safer which drives up valuations. To me, discussion of Felix's presentation style is irrelevant. What I want to know, is what is his criterion of 'expected disasters'? Are we see fewer nuclear meltdowns? Is it a climate (drought) thing? Is this geography related? Or is is related to the devastating effects of war? Are avoidance of these 'expected disasters' truly due to luck or explained by something else. Without examination of that fundamental asse...

Wow, I couldn't disagree more. I really love the plain language Felix uses to lay out fairly complicated topics, and his knowledge and intellectual curiosity are second to none. (In my opinion, obviously. haha) I agree. He articulates complex financial information understandably without oversimplifying. As you said, he also seems open to new information and understands how complex and ambiguous some aspects of investing and finance is. +1. Very informative video. Thanks for sharing. I dislike YouTube as a medium for financial information. Swedroe for example, like him or not, cites his sources. OK, so Felix contends that US outperformance is due to luck of expected disasters not materializing and investors learning the US is safer which dr...

[Inappropriate comment remoived. Moderator Pops1860] He's right but didn't make a compelling anything. Wow, I couldn't disagree more. I really love the plain language Felix uses to lay out fairly complicated topics, and his knowledge and intellectual curiosity are second to none. (In my opinion, obviously. haha) I agree. He articulates complex financial information understandably without oversimplifying. As you said, he also seems open to new information and understands how complex and ambiguous some aspects of investing and finance is. +1. Very informative video. Thanks for sharing. I dislike YouTube as a medium for financial information. Swedroe for example, like him or not, cites his sources. OK, so Felix contends that US outperformance...

Welcome, Hello, I am looking for some help regarding retirement savings options for US freelancers Where are you doing the work? If you are doing the work overseas, doesn't that make it foreign income? I don't think it matters if you are working for a US clients or not. That's my understanding at least. If you exclude your income under the FEIE, you wouldn't have US earned income to make an IRA contribution with unless you are over the FEIE exclusion limit (what $108,700 now). If you don't exclude under the FEIE but rather take a tax credit against foreign taxes, then you'd be eligible for an IRA contribution. I know in the UK that can make sense for larger incomes, but those with a lower income say FEIE saves them money. The penalties for ...

The Schwab CEO just went on the financial porn network. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E38qSneYQUU He has executive-style hair, so listen well! He should have balls of steel as well to run a 577B assets balance sheet with 10 billion liquid capital (37B Total equity- 12B Good Will -15B unrealized losses in HTM). I don’t think your numbers reflect the situation. They state: Focusing attention on unrealized losses within HTM has two logical flaws. First, those securities will mature at par, and given our significant access to other sources of liquidity there is very little chance that we’d need to sell them prior to maturity (as the name implies). Second, by looking at unrealized losses among HTM securities, but not doing the same for tradit...

Has anyone had the issue of needing a voided 1095-A because they already have employer coverage (1095-Bs and 1095-C's) showing coverage for the full year? So did you have marketplace coverage for 2022? Did you have a card? Were you paying anything? I tried to e-file a couple weeks ago and TT rejected it for a lack of 1095-A/Form 8962 which is showing a grant for full premium tax credit (~$3600). I am trying to dispute it with the marketplace because I would never have been eligible for any of the credit based on my high income alone and I also had employer coverage throughout the year. I would otherwise be getting a much larger refund. Did you complete the the 1095-A in TurboTax? I too received a premium tax credit that I turned out to not...

One of my index funds dropped a bit this morning (apparently heavy in finance, presumably related to SVB news) and today happens to be the same day my monthly investment into my Taxable M1 account takes place. I noticed that my monthly investment bought into this single fund, rather than all 6 index's that comprise my "pie" at M1 Finance. This got me thinking about rebalancing and whether my approach to rebalancing in my taxable account makes sense. My asset allocation 60% domestic, 20% international, 20% emerging markets. Thinking about a scenario from 2000-2010 , I would have primarily invested into domestic, and little into emerging with M1's rebalance approach. Did I miss out by not committing to a 60/20/20 investment, or did...

Even before the recent bank failures, I was thinking about how to protect my investments in case of brokerage firm collapses. I recently did a 401K rollover into Schwab TIRA and that account now holds about $1.6M. It's under my name only. Since SIPC insures only up to $500K, what would be the best way to protect my money? Does moving part of the money to another brokerage firm help? The best way to protect your money is to understand how it is protected. SIPC protection covers missing assets in a bankruptcy. In most bankruptcies, 95%+ of assets are recovered. This is due to regulations that a broker keep customer assets separate from their own. SIPC would be used to cover that missing 5%. In a typical bankruptcy therefore, SIPC protection ...

------------ At one level, SBNY seems to have been "tainted" by association with cryptocurrency. But it didn't seem that they had holdings in crypto, or investments in crypto, just that some of their customers (depositors) were involved in the business. Guilt by association. Did they have lines of credit out to the crypto companies? Loans secured by crypto? When FTX collapsed, they lost billions in deposits. So obviously there were concerns about them being susceptible to a bank run. They announced they were dialing back on exposure to digital-asset clients but questions remained. On another level, a large portion of deposits (I read it was about 90%) were above the nominal FDIC insurance limit. Was it just a matter of that fact ...

I doubt it. Higher rates are not generally bad for financial institutions who can profit more from their loans. Something "generally" being the case doesn't mean that it is the case in the specific instances in question. Specifically, the balance sheets of the banks that are seeing large drops in their stock value are presently structured such that they are being hurt by the rise in rates, not helped by it. Loans they make now / bonds they buy now at the higher rates will start to help them, but it will be some years before that counteracts the losses they have already taken on their pre-existing loans/bonds that have declined in mark-to-market value as rates have risen (and who knows what will happen to rates in the meanwhile). ...

The sooner Biden stops the war in Ukraine, the sooner we will solve inflation and banking problems. Biden is President of the US, not of the world. He does not have the power to simply order Russia to stop invading Ukraine, or to order Ukraine to roll over and die. In any case this is off topic, despite the loose chain of causation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine contributing to inflationary pressure which led to the rapid rise in interest rates. Seriously. How did the Ukraine situation get dragged into this? It seems unrelated, or only vaguely and very weakly. The world is largely chaotic and random, and there will probably always be some problems regardless of who is president. I certainly don't know everything and know significantly ...

were those assets ever even real, or just totally fake accounting statements? Madoff was SPIC insured. Madoff Investment, where the fraud happened, was not SPIC insured. SPIC did come in a cover after the fact. Sorry about the typo. He did pay for the insurance. Here’s a good overview: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2012/09/20/is-sipc-doing-enough-for-scam-victims/?sh=2b1317086a50 I don’t trust it. It’s not the same as FDIC. To extend, if you want SIPC insurance you need to put in some safeguards, such as segregation of assets, independent controls etc. These safeguards are robust and should protect the average retail investor in and by themselves. Madoff Investments wasn’t covered by SIPC and thus no internal controls. As such it ...

If you hold a CD at a bank or credit union that lets you title the account with POD beneficiaries (i.e., as a revocable trust, sometimes in this context called a Totten trust), that can raise the FDIC or NCUA coverage for that account. I've never been able to determine whether, if you buy a brokered CD in a brokerage account that lists beneficiaries, the same thing is true. As I understand brokered CDs sold by agents (as at Vanguard Brokerage Services), the account is titled "Vanguard Brokerage Services, as custodian for [name]" and that listing entitles each holder of the brokered CD to the normal $250,000 limit in coverage. But if a Vanguard brokerage account has beneficiaries, is the pass-through title "VBS, as custodian ...

If you hold a CD at a bank or credit union that lets you title the account with POD beneficiaries (i.e., as a revocable trust, sometimes in this context called a Totten trust), that can raise the FDIC or NCUA coverage for that account. I've never been able to determine whether, if you buy a brokered CD in a brokerage account that lists beneficiaries, the same thing is true. As I understand brokered CDs sold by agents (as at Vanguard Brokerage Services), the account is titled "Vanguard Brokerage Services, as custodian for [name]" and that listing entitles each holder of the brokered CD to the normal $250,000 limit in coverage. But if a Vanguard brokerage account has beneficiaries, is the pass-through title "VBS, as custodian ...

One of my index funds dropped a bit this morning (apparently heavy in finance, presumably related to SVB news) and today happens to be the same day my monthly investment into my Taxable M1 account takes place. I noticed that my monthly investment bought into this single fund, rather than all 6 index's that comprise my "pie" at M1 Finance. This got me thinking about rebalancing and whether my approach to rebalancing in my taxable account makes sense. My asset allocation 60% domestic, 20% international, 20% emerging markets. Thinking about a scenario from 2000-2010 , I would have primarily invested into domestic, and little into emerging with M1's rebalance approach. Did I miss out by not committing to a 60/20/20 investment, or did...

Welcome! Hi all, I am 32, living in the state of Idaho, and married with a joint pretax income of ~$220k ($170k from me, $50k from my spouse). I would like to retire as early as possible (targeting 40), though my wife will likely work longer. A few years ago, we had a fiduciary financial advisor give us some feedback on how to invest our money. This is our current breakdown: Emergency funds Savings account Balance- $10k 5 yr CDs Balance- $20k Retirement accounts 401k (self) Balance- $230k Assets- Vanguard Target 2055 (77%), VEXRX (23%) Annual contributions- maxing out pretax and backdoor Roth 401k (spouse) Balance- $56k Assets- Russell 3000 index (90%), total bond index (10%) Annual contributions- maxing out pretax Roth IRAs (spouse + self ...

Try the FDIC’s Electronic Deposit Insurance Estimator (EDIE)

EDIE can be used to calculate the insurance coverage of all types of deposit accounts offered by an FDIC-insured bank, including:

Checking Accounts
Savings Accounts (both statement and passbook)
Money Market Deposit Accounts (MMDAs), and
Certificates of Deposit (CDs)

See https://edie.fdic.gov/index.html

Trust rules change soon and info is at https://www.fdic.gov/news/fact-sheets/f ... -21-22.pdf

teelainen wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 3:41 pm There are a lot of small online banks with high interest rates (between 4.35% to 4.55%)

In this current banking environment, is it safe to leave money at those banks?

Or is it better to move your money to bigger banks with lower interest rates? Thoughts?

Sorta kinda obviously and as always, use an FDIC protected bank and stay under FDIC limits. Then you will only be subject to a delay in getting your money out. Seems to be pretty fast though.

I don't think this has anything to do with the 'current banking environment' though. It's been best practice forever. Nothing has changed.

Your assets are held in a segregated accounting. If the brokerage goes bust those assets are exempt from creditors claims. I used to work in this area. Protections are robust. .... Then you are backstopped with SIPC. It is super safe. But this is only for $500K, correct? I don't have cash at schwab, but have well above $500K in securities. I really hope I don't need to look into transferring securities to multiple other brokerage accounts this week. SIPC protection covers missing assets in a bankruptcy. In most bankruptcies, 95%+ of assets are recovered. This is due to regulations that a broker keep customer assets separate from their own. SIPC would be used to cover that missing 5%. So in a typical bankruptcy, you could have $10,000,000 b...